Mount Greylock School Election Causes Confusion

Chris Dodig was technically turned out of his seat on the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee by Sheila Hebert, who's already serving on the committee.

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — Sheila Hebert burst out laughing when told she won a seat on the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee.

The joke was: She did not want to win.

Hebert, who already is serving out a term on the committee, actively encouraged everyone she knew to vote for one of the other candidates vying for the single open Lanesborough seat on the committee.

But when the votes were tallied on Tuesday, Hebert had 1,630 votes (1,067 from Williamstown; 563 from Lanesborough). Her opponents, Chris Dodig and Mark Schiek, had 1,256 and 537, respectively.

"Are you kidding me?" Hebert asked when reached at her home on Tuesday night. "I'm a little shocked, to be honest.

"They do a Lanesborough newsletter electronically, and each of us put out statements, and in mine I said, 'I encourage you to give your vote to one of the other two candidates so they have a chance to get in.'"

Dodig, like Hebert, is filling out an unexpired term on the committee for members who resigned mid-term. Dodig's term expires at the end of November. Hebert’s current seat has two more years on a four-year term.

Hebert told iBerkshires.com in October that she did not want to win the seat Dodig currently occupies because it would require Williamstown's and Lanesborough's Boards of Selectmen to appoint someone to fill the seat she currently holds.

That may be the scenario the towns now face.

Or, it may not.

Lanesborough Town Clerk Judith Gallant said Tuesday that Hebert may be able to avoid displacing Dodig yet.

"She can write a letter declining the position, and then it would go to the next top vote-getter," Gallant said. "I think that's how it works. That's what we'd do in a town election.

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